Twitch Boss Says the Future Is Set Top Boxes, Not Consoles

Twitch TV co-founder Emmett Shear believes Sony and Microsoft will have to drastically change their approach to hardware in the future if they hope to survive.

"The problem is, the seven-year upgrade lifecycle doesn’t work in the face of the two-year upgrade cycles for every other hardware platform," Shear told The Guardian. "It’s so intrinsically built into how consoles get manufactured and made and the full business model, that I’d be surprised to see another generation."

According to the Twitch boss, the future of gaming hardware will be akin to set top boxes with an upgrade cycle similar to that of smartphones and tablets. "They’re going to have to change form," he added. "You can already see this on both Xbox and PlayStation where there’s a tighter upgrade loop for both the operating systems and the games."

"This is the first step toward being able to iterate the hardware platform. I could imagine a version 1.1 product from both Microsoft and Sony which adds in slightly more speed and slightly more memory very similar to how phones and tablets work today. I think it’s going to look more like the mobile phone market over time."

Many have argued the console market's days are numbered, and yet PlayStation 4 sales continue to defy expectations. In fact, Sony's console has already surpassed 20 million in worldwide sales. Despite continued interest from consumers, do you think dedicated gaming platforms are on their way out?

Alex Osborn is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @alexcosborn.